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Saturday, July 9, 2011

Something for the weekend: The creative process

Still totally absorbed in my book. Part two is flying - should be ready to go to my posse of critics by next weekend at this rate. So no writing for you here - but a great quote I came across this week in my research...

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.

1 comment:

Wow - the "you" that quote refers to is most definitely me. I'm always waiting, thinking I don't have what it takes to carry ideas through to completion. I'm so glad you shared that gem of wisdom, and thrilled to hear your book is coming along so well! Happy weekend to you.